It’s been rough being a Bengals fan this year.

I mean, even more so than usual. It’s one thing To Have No Expectations for your team and then having them Suck It UP, but To Have Extremely High Expectations and then Fail, that just plain Blows Chunks.

The Bengals had back-to-back losses to teams that they have no business losing to. I don’t want to take away anything from the Browns or Bucs… Okay, just kidding, I want to take everything away from them, especially those wins.  The Browns and the  Bucs are just awfully mediocre teams.  Like a C-minus.

And I was at that Bucs game. There can’t be too much left on this planet that is more demoralizing than watching your team blow a 7-point lead  in the final two minutes of the game.  I was feeling pretty good with all the other Bengals fans around me, and then… everything just started sucking for some inexplicable reason.  The Bengals went from being successful to Epic Failure faster than Justin Bieber’s career (I’m not being prophetic, just truthful).

To top it all off, during the Bucs game the Bengals announced to the crowd that Carson Palmer broke 20K yards for his career. And then he was promptly booed. By his own fans.

What the hell?

I even went on another blog site and wrote an entry (gasp! Don’t tell Mr. Midget!) about how Real Fans Don’t Boo Palmer.

And then the vitriol spills forth: (Paraphrasing the fan responses to my post here)

“Real Players don’t get booed!” (So Palmer’s a fake player now?)

“Why am I not allowed to boo my own team?” (Haven’t you realized that Obama has changed this country into a Fascist Regime? Free speech is now outlawed in America (Man, I gotta stop watching Glenn Beck)).

And I don’t have an appropriate response to the Palmer Naysayers. None. I can’t defend him anymore. He’s been more bad than good this year. He cost us both the Browns game (held on to the ball too long for a sack) and the Bucs games (3 INTs that led to 17 points). Sure, much blame can be meted out to the rest of the 21 starters, but the Face of the Franchise is a Face of Disgrace to Bengaldom. No longer can us fans puff up our chests and declare Palmer the Best QB of the AFC North. No longer are we inserting him into the Top Five QB of the NFL Discussion.

And it pains us. It pains us deeply.

To Bengals fans, Palmer is that one really hot girl that you dated early on in life. She was great initially (2005), and she led you on a wild, uncharted, ineffable ride. She rocked your world. But then weird poop started to happen. She got annoying. Her jaw started to click inexplicably as she talked. You noticed that she has this weird, boisterous laugh like a chimpanzee. She always got food stuck in her teeth and talked with her mouth full. She was still incredibly hot and you wanted to put up with all of this stuff, but it’s grating on you, and now, despite her incredible hotness, you’re crazy enough to dump her.

The Fans are in that mode with Palmer. They want to dump him faster than America wants to dump Barack Obama. One of my friends keeps telling me that the Bengals will get OSU’s Terrelle Pryor in 2011. Adam Schein of Fox Sports says that the Bengals can’t win a Super Bowl with Palmer and they need to drop him.

This hurts. It’s extremely painful to think that the once surefire Franchise Savior is now a middle-of-the-road QB. A guy that still has some great moments every now and then but he’s recently letting us down more often than not.

I’m at a loss for words. I feel pain. I feel shame.

And then it hit me.

I can’t control this. Palmer’s performance, the Bengals performance, whatever. I need a Zen-like attitude with this situation. So, with apologies to all Buddhists out there, here are my Four Noble Truths of Bengal Fandom:

1) All Bengal Fandom is Suffering.
2) Suffering is Caused by Watching the Bengals Play.
3) To End Suffering, Stop Watching the Bengals Play Stop Being So GD Emotionally Invested in the Team
4) Follow the Eightfold Path:
- Right View: There’s plenty of season left to play. 2-3 is not the end of the world
- Right Thought: the Falcons and Dolphins games are utterly winnable games. We can beat the Steelers at home on Monday Night Football. 5-3 is a decent mid-season record.
- Right Action: Continue supporting your Bengals. Even if they falter, or Palmer throws more INTs than Jake Delhomme of 2009, support your local team. There’s no pride in being a Fair Weather Fan, despite Cincinnati being the Capitol of Fair Weather Fans.
- Right Intention: Palmer is a stand-up guy. He’s involved in the community. He’s the least douchiest athlete on the planet, from what I can tell. If T.O. fights for that ball more in the Bucs game, he would’ve gotten a first down and there would be no panic mode now.
- Right Mindfulness: The coaches are our coaches. Everyone always wants to fire Bob Bratowski. But now people are calling for Marvin Lewis’s head. I say, let’s have the season play out. Let’s not bitch about things we can’t control (which is just about everything with the Bengals).
- Right Concentration: the Bengals have a hell of a schedule for the remainder of the year: Falcons, Dolphins, Steelers, Colts, Jets, Saints, Steelers, Ravens, Chargers. People say: Bengals are Doomed. I say: the Bengals play their best against the best teams. Usually.
- Right Drinking: Dos Equis Amber.
- Right Eating: Spicy Garlic Chicken Wings.

Right now this season reeks of mediocrity. I don’t know if the Bengals will be much better than 8-8, but stranger things have happened. And I’m not giving up on the Bengals or Carson Palmer. I’m not the Fair Weather Fan who lurks around Cincinnati, cursing this and that about the Bengals.

I’m as frustrated as all the other fans about the Bengals Suckitude. But instead of booing and pissing and moaning about everything, let’s adopt a Zen-like attitude toward the whole GD thing, drink some Dos Equis, and hope that more wins are just around the corner.

Any suggestions, questions, complaints can be emailed to djacob@gearupforsports.com. You can also join Dave’s facebook group, and/or follow him at http://twitter.com/HoldenCarraway.